Portrait by Falak Shawwa.
“My life in art is a perpetual return to what resonates within me and what prompts me to open gates into unknown gardens: to plant and to weed, to prune and to cultivate, both senses and thoughts into a coherent, organic and complex whole. As I move forward I always return to what underlies my direct experience: a shaft of light. A memory of closeness. The feel of earth as I descend an old staircase. The wind. Riding a wave. Saying something ‘right’. Being a part. Forming a whole.
I see my art as a garden without a fence. In the past I built fences that bound my return, my search, in time and in space. Today I feel my garden opening, becoming limitless and free, having been watered by endless journeys of exile and of communion; of love and of separation; of milk and of merging mirrors.
I only wish that my garden is deep enough and expansive enough to contain you. For we are each other’s mirror. And our birth grows out of our joint reflection. My hope is that these reflections form the roots for more growth and more love. Despite all.”
I was born and grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, the third of four daughters in a closely knit, highly academic family. Always an introvert, I was introduced to art at a very early age. In painting, I discovered a language that gave expression to my thoughts and feelings and conveyed their inner dialogue beyond words. Preparing myself to paint, I spent time in nature, both in solitude and within community, and reveled in its mystery. This enabled me to see from within and to communicate in what connects rather than what separates us.
During the civil war in Lebanon, I experienced wrenching fear through the destruction of the life and the self that I knew. Yet, I was gifted with grace and love in the midst of overwhelming violence. In time, my belief in our intrinsic humanity deepened as I came to understand how to calibrate terror and grace—dark and light. I continued to paint from within as I charted an inner map of layered contradictions that illumined my life for years to come.
With the war still raging, I left Lebanon for Washington, DC. There I built on my experiences and reflections of connection and disconnection, and honed my skills at transparency. I coupled painting with writing to express feelings of both agency and belonging. I shaped a new sense of self and began to appreciate meditative solitude as a way to till my ground creatively. The privilege of being in and with nature was restorative and generative. My poetry emerged from a wellspring of love, and I grew.
I now live in Beirut and remain quietly introspective despite so many political and social upheavals. I center my art in the riches of our essential humanity with respect for our ability to correspond with and imagine our inner truth. Painting and writing in loving awe, I remain within, crossing those passages that connect us in kindness, gently.
Afaf Zurayk graduated from the American University of Beirut in 1970 with a BA in Fine Arts with distinction, and obtained an MA in Islamic Art from Harvard University in 1972. She taught in Lebanon at the Beirut University College (now Lebanese American University) and the American University of Beirut, as well as in the continuing education programs of the Corcoran College of Art and Design and Georgetown University in Washington D.C.
Zurayk’s artwork is included in the permanent collections of the British Museum in London, the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah, Sursock Museum in Beirut and Darat al-Funun in Amman, as well as in many private collections. She received the Jouhayna Baddoura prize for art in 2017.
Afaf Zurayk currently lives and works in Beirut, Lebanon. She is represented by Saleh Barakat Gallery.